Project Horizon Film

Description

In 1969, John Player & Sons looked to have a film made about their new Horizon factory, which was then being built. As the company put it, the film would function 'to encourage employees to look objectively and favourably on the Horizon operation in total and to encourage a closer involvement of the immediate community in the whole project'. Player's commissioned Derek Stewart Productions to produce the film at a cost of just under £20,000.

The main narrators in the film are Tony Garrett, who was then chairman and managing director of Player's, and Tony Davis, who was chairman of the special managerial committee Player's set up to oversee the planning of Horizon. They talk viewers through the development and building of the factory.

Less senior employees are also featured and the film doesn't shy away from dealing with what was then a controversial issue amongst some of Player's employees: the switch to a double day shift pattern of work. Reservations about shift work are featured in the film, but Player's wanted to give the overall impression that 'many people find Double Day Shifts attractive'.

Employees were shown the Project Horizon film at Nottingham's Savoy cinema as part of Player's large public relations effort in support of its new factory.